Romain Grosjean surprised rivals by making a one-stop strategy work in Montreal while the likes of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel failed to do so, allowing the Frenchman to steal a remarkable second place in the closing laps.
Grosjean was able to stretch his first stint on supersoft tyres out to 21 laps, while Vettel pitted on lap 16 and Alonso on lap 17.
However he kept his soft tyres alive even longer than those lap differentials suggest, and while Alonso and Vettel struggled with degradation, he kept up a good pace.
Grosjean dedicated his result to his friend Guillaume Moreau, who was injured in a Le Mans testing crash last week.
“It wasn’t easy at the start because basically I was fighting in the traffic and I didn’t know whether the guys were going to do one-stop, two-stops,” said the Frenchman. “And then I tried to jump Rosberg on a pitstop, but it didn’t work, so I was behind him again. And when you follow a car it’s not easy to save your tyres and protect a little bit.
“I know that we were trying to go for one-stop and I didn’t really know what to think about. Then I saw Nico coming to the pit and thought ‘good news.’ And then I caught Mark. Mark was quite the same pace as I was, so it wasn’t easy, and then he went to the pit as well. Then I was more safe and I couldn’t realize from P9 – I think – on my pit board to P2 in a few laps.
“I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I knew that we had to carry good pace. Again, the team did an incredible job to give me a good car in the race.”
Grosjean said having a decent result after so much frustration was a big boost.
“It means quite a lot. It means that we’re in good shape for working with the team who are improving every time. We had a bad Friday with quite different conditions compared to today and having to learn the track and the set-up of the car wasn’t easy and I’m sure we could have achieved better but we know it for the rest of the season.
“We are working quite well, so I’m pretty pleased with this podium. It means that we are still here after seven races and it was not one shot that we could get in Bahrain. We are still fighting at the front with good performance and the team is doing well with the Lotus E20.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Well, he had the pace and the ability, so a great result. Even if the guy “didn’t understand”, he kept going, made no mistakes. For sure, drivers just see their bit, you know. They’re not watching the action on telly and gotta rely on the team work, people on the pit wall. Always been like that, will always be.
Was it Irvinee who said Schu had no clue as to what was going on in the race and was just taking orders from Brawn and Co., could be the other way around actually – an old quote, me memory fades – Brawn had no clue and Schu was the master of superduperdom and could turn up the pace when needed. Irvinee said all kinds of things in the past, crazy fella, stylish helmet design, though, especially Jag years. Loved that one.
Like most drivers of his era, fast Eddie’s now being a bit more charitable toward Michael. Though I recall him commenting on how Michael would sit and pour through the data from a test or practice, when in Irvine’s opinion he didn’t have a clue as to what he was looking at. Grosjean’s podium finish proves once again why one shoulld always be pushing to the very end-you never know what might happen. It looked for a few laps like Alonso had the race won.
Yeah, IRV would normally leave a classical comment here and there in the old days, like the one about Schum’s oddly shaped helmet… and many more.